"When I would talk about how valuable I thought that messaging
apps would be, I would say, 'I bet you if WhatsApp were sold
today, it would go for $20 billion,'" Livingston told Business
Insider.

It did, however, make it "really real" just how important mobile
messaging apps are becoming to big tech companies: They're
becoming "table stakes," Livingston says.

Kik is the only one of the other Big Five messaging apps–that is,
Kik Line, WeChat, KakaoTalk, and WhatsApp
– that's currently bigger than WhatsApp in the U.S.,
but Kik and Kakao – roughly the same size – are the
two smallest apps globally in terms of users.

Earlier this month, Kik introduced a new built-in, HTML5 browser. Clearly, like WeChat
and Kakao, the company is taking a completely different path than
WhatsApp's famed "no
gimmicks" approach. Livingston says that his goal
is not to get Kik acquired, it's to develop it into a larger,
all-encompassing platform.

"Since the beginning, we've been asking, if you make a great
mobile messenger, what does that give you leverage to do next?"
Livingston says. "We want to usher in the mobile web era."